Papillon's Wardrobe

Papillon has collected quite an adorable little wardrobe so far. Here are a few highlights.

So far, we have refrained from buying lots of stuff. But, we happened to be at a Goodwill, where they sell the clothes by the pound...which means baby clothes are ridiculously cheap. So we picked out a few things. Including this little pink onesie. It cost 33 cents. We couldn't resist.

We got this amazingly adorable little dress from some friends who i think were excited to have an excuse to buy something girly.

And we have gotten some brightly colored summer dressed from my family. I positively love the polka dot giraffe one!

With a little bit over 10 weeks to go until her estimated arrival date, I think that her wardrobe is off to a good start!

A Family Celebration

Last weekend we went to a belated birthday party for Nannie, combined with an Anniversary party for Nannie and Grandpop.

It was a grand time!

57 years (I think) of marriage.



My Uncle, Grandpop, Nannie and Mom

The party ended with a casual bocce tournament. True to form, my competitive parents started off the game by clarifying the rules, and determining whether or not mom's long arms put her at a significant advantage.

No family gathering is complete without tons of family photos.
All us ladies (including Papillon) share the same middle name.
(As does Nannie's mom...so Papillon is the 5th in the tradition)

And a picture of Mon Amour and I - just because we hardly ever remember to take pictures of us.

A delightful day for a delightful party.

P.S. - The maternity shirt that I am wearing was a super-cheap yardsale find. The lady of that yard sale had fantastic taste, I only wish all her maternity clothes were not of the winter variety. Oh well, I got one good shirt out of it.

Cherry Tomatoes

In some non-house news. Last week sometime, I planted a whole bunch of seeds (some of which I had bought, some were left at the house by the previous owners - random-house-buying-bonus).

The very first thing to come up was the cherry tomatoes. Which is fabulous cause they are one of the things I am most looking forward to!

Here is the little cherry tomato sprout. It is growing crazy-fast. No more than 4 hours before this photo was taken, there was nothing visible above the dirt. Honestly, nothing at all, I had checked.

Since they sprouted, they have been going at about the same rate. Perhaps I shall plant these outside this weekend...

Things I Love About My House: The Front Door

One last thought for this series, and then its probably time to move on to something new.

But, I have to say, I love my front door.

Its a legitimate FRONT door. It comes into my living room (which I do love, though I don't think it made it into the series). No longer do I have to welcome people into my laundry room (though there is another door downstairs that leads to the laundry room if I really wanted to let people in that way....). The farm house was lovely, but not meant for entertaining. We made it work, but I love that my new house actually has a guest-appropriate entrance.

A front door and a bathtub was really all I wanted in a house.
And God certainly chose to bless us with a lot more than that.

I love my new house.

Things I Love About My House: The Basement

I love that my house has a basement. And I think, technically the sq footage of the basement is not included in 1300 sq ft of the rest of the house. I am not 100% positive about that...but that is how it seems to me.

Anyway - I love that it has a laundry / furnace room with a sizeable closet
It also has a full bathroom.

And....one half of it is of the "finished basement" variety!

Its kind of the catch-all storage place right now. But eventually we may put our guest-bedroom down here, and then one day, transform it into a kids play room!

Until then, this is where Marge sleeps. Its nice and cool, and once she got used to it, she decided she loves it.

3rd Trimester

This week began the 3rd Trimester. Less than 3 months (if she comes on time) to go.

And there is good news on the Dr front. I went to a different Dr earlier this week and positively loved her! There are actually 9 Drs in the practice, and no particular Dr will be my "main Dr" - but I am ok with that. From what I could tell everyone in the office was super nice! This Dr actually read my medical records and didn't feel the need to re-do everything my old Dr did (like the other Dr had wanted to) - they said everything looked great! And one of my favorite parts: my appointment was at 8:45am - and I was done and on my way by 9:05. So much nicer than the 2 hours the last Dr took!

So the hospital where Papillon will be born is about 45 minutes or an hour from our house (kind of ironic, since I am pretty sure there are like 5 hospitals within 20 minutes of me...) but I think it will be a good choice.

Until then - Papillon is making my belly bigger and rounder every day.

She kicks and tumbles a lot these days, and I am still loving it. I actually miss it when she is quiet for a time.
I have definitely hit an exhaustion phase though. Pretty consistently by 8pm I am totally ready to fall over and sleep through the night. And if my desk chair was a little bit more comfortable I think I would fall asleep for a afternoon nap pretty much every day.

We've gotten quite a few more cute things for Papillon since I last posted cute baby thing pictures, so perhaps I will have to post more of those soon....so stay tuned!

Things I Love About My House: The Bedrooms

You may just have to trust me on the coolness of these rooms, cause I took lame pictures. But, I love the bedrooms in this house. There are 3, but I particularly love the 2 that make up the upstairs.

There is the "master bedroom". Complete with amazing red walls, slanted ceilings, hardwood floors, and 2, that's right 2 decent sized closets! I don't know what to do with all the storage space!

Forgive the messy-ness, the poorly made bed and the lousy picture quality. Just know that our bedroom is lovely.

Also upstairs is Papillon's room. Let's just say there is another closet (yay!) and the pain color is also amazing!

And in this case, forgive the empty room (one day we will put something in the nursery...) and the bad picture.

That's pretty much the whole upstairs - but, let me just say, there is more closet space upstairs (4 whole closets!) than I have had in the entirety of the 2 other places in which Mon Amour and I have lived. It's fantastic.

Things I Love About My House: The Backyard

My house has a delightful backyard.

It is not huge, but is definitely sizeable. Totally big enough for a little playground for Papillon when she gets older.

For now, it has some lovely features as is.

Including this awesome tree: (as well as a few other trees that are just as delightful, only less photogenic)

A delightful vegetable garden that needs a little digging up - but there are definitely some strawberry plants growing in there, and that makes me excited!

And, possibly the best part (and by best, I mean, most random) - the Koi Pond.

Complete with at least 7 fish, and one ornamental tree of some sort.
Depending on the level of maintenance required, and cost of running the pump perpetually, the pond may or may not stay. But, for now, its a great conversation piece.

Things I Love About My House: The Thermostat

Yes, a very boring picture for today's post. But it can't be helped. This is one of my favorite features in my new house.

It is a thermostat....that actually tells you what temperature it is.
No more guessing if the house is closer to 60, or 90 (the only two markers on our old heat system)

I can actually pick a temperature, and the heat will come on, actually heat the house, and regulate it to that temperature. Its almost miraculous.

And in case you are wondering, no, I did not set it to 77. This was taken on one of those super-warm days in the past couple weeks. No heat was actually on.

I think I will be less enamored with this feature this summer, since we don't have central AC, and I will have to try and regulate the temp with window units. But for now, I am enjoying the simple things.

Yard Sale Finds

We interrupt our regularly scheduled blogging to bring you some exciting yard sale finds from the weekend. Mon Amour and I are totally enthralled with the whole yard sale-ing thing. Having come from a place of very few people, there were obviously very few (read "none whatsoever" yard sales. Here at our new place, there are pretty much at least 5 with in 10 minutes of us every weekend. So for the past two weekends we have ventured our to explore.

The first weekend was a total bust. We learned that really the ideal yard sale, is actually a moving sale. Yard sales have tons of useless little stuff (which explains why people are selling it) and moving sales have all the fun big stuff that we are looking for!
We found some good moving sales on Saturday, and secured a few quite delightful deals.

The first, was this baby swing.

It is of the small, portable variety, which is what I wanted. It is in great condition, and all the fabric parts are machine washable. So, now that it is washed, it is pretty much good as new. And for $6, quite a deal!

Next I found this fabulous bed sheet.

Not at all the kind of bed sheet I want on my bed. But Marge needs a pillow case for her newly claimed body-pillow (Marge got my old one when I got a new one). And I was looking for a piece of fabric big enough to make one out of. For a $1, this one will do the trick.
We also got this game - Rummikub

A delightful variation on the game of Rummy. And again, for $1, it was not to be passed up.


But, the best find, was this:

An beautiful armoire, simply in need of a little sanding and a little staining. The drawers all work fine, its relatively solid. And when the price tag said free, the only real question was - does it fit in the car? And can Mon Amour and a very pregnant me, get it out of the car when we get it home?
The answer to both questions was yes! And the armoire is ours!

It made all of our dud yard sales worth it. And we have been inspired to keep trying! Perhaps next weekend will yield equally delightful results.

Things I Love About My House: The Back Porch

I love my back porch.

I love that it came with a picnic table.

And that it has some sweet flowering vines growing up the sides.
And that it gets lots and lots of fun afternoon sun.

Oh, and I love the rather large rosebush next to it. It looks sufficiently large and well established enough that I should not be able to kill it.

Thing I Love About My House: The Bathroom/Bathtub

This was actually my least favorite room when we moved in. It's pretty much the only room in the house that they didn't update. But now that we have been here for about 2 weeks, I can truly say, I love this bathroom.

From the fabulous paint color (we love all the paint colors that the house came with) that conveniently matches our towels

To the pedestal sink.
To the super-tall shower head.

There is even a linen closet in the bathroom! The closet is probably about the size of our old bathroom (almost).

And of course, my favorite part, you'll notice, it has a....

...bathtub!

A bathtub was a must for me when we were looking to move. We ended up with 2 bathrooms, but only one with a bathtub. There is nothing special about it, but there doesn't need to be. It's a regular ol' bathtub, and I love it!

Things I Love About My House: The Kitchen

Pardon the empty-ness of the pictures - these were taken pre-move in. Post-move in, the counters have been a bit cluttered with stuff I am still trying to figure out where to put, so these will have to do for now. Anyway...


I love my new kitchen. It has lots of fun features that my old kitchen did not; including:

A back door! Yes, that is right, my house now officially has a front door, and a back door (and a basement door to boot!) - no more inviting guests in through the laundry room!

Lots of counter space, with awesome brand new cabinets.
Tile floors - like legitimate, cold on your feet, tile floors. Not laminate stuff.
A garbage disposal - I have never had one of those before!

Lots of beautiful afternoon sunlight.
And a Dishwasher!

Oh, and did I mention the counter space?

I love my kitchen

Things I Love About My House: The Cuteness

And now we shall begin a series entitled "Things I love about my house" which will include a series of pictures (some more random than others) of things that I love about my new house.

Starting with: The Overall Cuteness of the House Itself.

This is my cute little brick house in the city.

It is a 1300 sq ft (ish, I think) cape cod style house.

And it is cute from all angles.

Stay tuned for more exciting Things I Love About My House.

26 weeks

Things are rolling right along with little Papillon Rouge, we hit 26 weeks recently - only 14 (ish) more to go. I think that the weight gain has slowed a little bit (though not a lot), such that I am optimistic that when all is said and done, I might be able to keep my weight gain under 40 lbs. That's my goal.

I am still feeling remarkably well. I don't sleep really well (Mon Amour informed me last night that I succeeded in keeping him up too with all my tossing and turning....oops), but other than that, I have no complaints, and am, in fact, rather enjoying being pregnant.


P.R. is kicking lots these days, and it is super fun when I can actually see her kicks from the outside.

I am currently in search of a new doctor. Its kind of funny, I used to have 1 options in terms of a doctor. So I went to that doctor, for lack of any other options; and he was amazing!
Now, I have dozens, if not hundreds of options for doctors, and more than a few hospitals to choose from. And all I really want to do is go back to my one, solitary, but amazing option.

So far I have tried 3 doctors.
One was not accepting any more July due dates.
One I had an appointment with, which was possibly the most aggravating experience ever (it began with the receptionist intentionally locking me out of the office, and 2 hours later ended with the dr telling me my previous dr was dumb and that I should be super-concerned about AIDs and cystic fibrosis)
And the 3rd one sounds promising...hopefully I will have a good report to give next week.

Until then, P.R. and I are both quite happy and healthy.

Marge's Opinion

During our month of transition from the farm, to my parent's house, and finally to our own city house, poor Marge came very close to having a complete and total mental break down. I have never known her to be so stressed. There were mornings when she had to be coaxed out of the crate; it was as though she wasn't mentally ready to take on yet another crazy day.

We had to drive her all over the place (and she hates the car), she spent time with lots of different people (which she likes, but it stresses her out at the same time) and when we finally got to the new house, she wasn't sure what to make of it. The first couple of times we put her to bed in her crate, she cried, and howled for a bit. She hasn't done that since we first got her.

But, life is calming down, and Marge is slowly getting accustomed to her new home. What does she think of it?

She thinks it doesn't have nearly enough carpet on the first floor.
So she sits on the steps, and will even sleep there, even though it is hugely uncomfortable

There is nothing she hates more than sitting on a hard surface.

Other than that, I think the house meets with her approval.

Oh, and Marge's birthday was last week. She is 2 now. Happy Birthday, Marge.